Westwood senior Joe Derocha, top, gets Hart's Trenton Swihart in a hold during one of their matches against each other at 112 pounds in the MHSAA Division 4 individual wrestling regional tournament held in Charlevoix on Saturday. (Photo courtesy Kathleen Carlson)

MARQUETTE — Ten wrestlers from seven area schools will be making a third visit to the MHSAA individual wrestling tournament after their good finishes in regionals held Saturday.

Those 10, including two regional champions from Ishpeming, will make the long but certainly worthwhile trip to Ford Field in Detroit for the state finals on March 6 and 7. They’ve already had top-four finishes in district and regional competition the past two weekends.

Marquette competed in a Division 2 regional at Gaylord; Negaunee at a Division 3 regional at Boyne City; and Ishpeming, Westwood, Gwinn, Munising, Manistique and Newberry in Division 4 at Charlevoix.

Every competing school had at least one state finalist except for Munising, which had two wrestlers come up just one win short of making the coveted early March trip.

In all, the eight area schools had 26 wrestlers entered at regionals.

The top four finishers in each weight class at last week’s districts advanced to regionals to go up against the top four from another Lower Peninsula-based district. The eight wrestlers in each bracket opened against a wrestler from the opposite district, but after that, wrestlers could potentially go against anybody in the modified double-elimination format.

Top-four regional finishers earn berths to the state finals, which will crown 56 state champions in four divisions from among nearly 900 finalists.

In Saturday’s regionals, Division 2 pitted the Gaylord district that Marquette was in against the Fenton district, Division 3 had the Grayling district that included Negaunee against Shepherd, and Division 4 pitted the Westwood district with all the other area teams against the Oscoda district.

This tournament is separate from the team wrestling tournament, which pitted full teams against each other and saw Westwood and Newberry as the only area district champions get knocked out in a Division 4 regional on Wednesday in Onaway.

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Ishpeming Hematites

The Hematites had probably the best showing of any school on Saturday, not only getting senior Alaric Martin and sophomore Jaeger Wilson to Detroit, but doing it in style with championships in their respective weight classes as each won three times without a loss in Charlevoix.

Martin, wrestling at 215 pounds, opened with a pin of Mike Boughner of Mancelona at 2 minutes, 38 seconds, then decisioned Russell Wilson of Whittemore-Prescott 7-5 before fending off Christian Ward of Oscoda 5-1 in the finals.

Wilson, at 119, pulled off a similar set of wins, pinning Seth Duncan of LeRoy Pine River at 5:53 of his opener before finishing things off with two decisions, 3-2 over Darren Gostlin of Evart and 8-5 over Matthew Treiber of Pine River for the championship.

Three of their teammates were knocked out in two matches — sophomore Dawson Delongchamp at 160, senior Preston Collette at 215 and senior Ethan Sigala at 285.

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Marquette Redmen

MSHS also had two state finalists but only needed two wrestlers at regionals to achieve that goal.

Senior Joe Lagrou placed third at 112 with a 3-1 record. He opened with a pin of Ty Johnson of Lake Fenton at 0:35, then was pinned by Jacob Byra of St. Johns at 1:21.

He came back with decisions over Ryan Angelo of Goodrich 14-1 and Gabe Thompson of Gaylord 9-0 in the third-place match.

Sophomore Wyatt Kuhlman finished fourth at 140 with a 2-2 split. He lost to Carson Richards of Goodrich 4-2, then pulled out back-to-back wins, beating Gavin Lawrence of Lake Fenton 15-4 and Bryson Gunn of Ortonville Brandon 4-3.

He finished with a 3-1 setback in a second matchup against Richards to decide third place.

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Newberry Indians

The Indians had a pair of wrestlers win multiple times to punch their tickets to Detroit.

Senior Lance Bowler went 3-1 at 189 to finish third. He pinned Sir Xavier Navoni of Fife Lake Forest Area at 1:11 before being pinned by Andrew Quinn of Mason County Central at 2:23.

He came back with two more decisive wins, beating Colby Pauly of Onaway 11-1 and pinning Caleb Brown of St. Ignace at 0:32 for third place.

Junior Jacob Gribbell amassed a 2-2 record at 160 to finish fourth. He beat Sam Bailey of Evart 4-1 before getting pinned by Dakota Gagnon of Whittemore-Prescott at 4:42.

He then downed Conner Christner of Roscommon 19-1 before losing 10-1 in the third-place match to Anthony Paull of Rogers City.

Sophomore Travis O’Neil at 119 missed the state finals by one win as he did have a victory over Jayden Jones of Mancelona 11-8 sandwiched around a pair of losses.

Senior Cameron DePew at 171 and freshman Derek Bowler at 130 both exited after two matches.

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Negaunee Miners

Negaunee had one of its two regional qualifiers make states as senior Leo Helppi finished runner-up at 189.

He opened with an 8-6 overtime win over Hunter Huguelet of Gladwin, then edged Chayton Wiggins of Remus Chippewa Hills 7-5 before succumbing 11-5 to Jimmy Miron of Sanford-Meridian in the finals.

Freshman teammate Joe McCollum lost his two matches at 125.

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Westwood Patriots

Senior Joe Derocha placed third at 112 with a 2-1 mark to make the state finals.

He opened by getting pinned by Trenton Swihart of Hart at 5:07, then after receiving a bye, defeated Kyle Corcoran of Mancelona 7-1 and in a rematch with Swihart, won 14-4 in the third-place match.

Senior Jackson Vidlund missed the state finals by one win at 189 as he opened with a 4-0 victory over Elijah Carper of LeRoy Pine River before suffering two losses.

Seniors Wyatt Carlson at 130 and Tyler Lindholm at 140 were knocked out in two matches.

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Gwinn Modeltowners

The Modeltowners had just one regional qualifier, but made it count as the area’s only freshman to qualify for the state finals, Xander Luoma, placed fourth at 130.

Going 2-2, he opened with a pin of Jared Coxe of Frankfort at 4:30, then lost to Jordan Koetje of Pine River 9-1.

He came back to pin Tony Williams of Manistique at 4:41 before getting edged in the third-place match by Carter Hirschfeld of Mason County Central, 8-7.

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Manistique Emeralds

Senior Isaac Brewster finished fourth at 285 to earn his trip to Ford Field.

He was pinned by Jeff Lane of Frankfort at 5:46 in his opener before drawing a bye.

Brewster then pinned Dominic Molicki-Lancaster of Evart at 1:12 before being pinned again by Lane at 2:21 for third place.

Senior Tony Williams missed the finals by one win at 130, recording a victory over Derek Bowler of Newberry at 0:31 around two losses.

Also going out in two matches were junior Ryan Korna at 160 and sophomore McKabe Swanson at 215.

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Munising Mustangs

The Mustangs had two hard-luck seniors who fell one win short of a state finals trip.

At 152, Devin Moore defeated Jesse Allen of Whittemore-Prescott 12-9 around two losses, as did Gabriel Cole at 171. Cole’s win came in a 4-1 decision over Bradon Farragh of Iron Mountain.

Freshman teammate Reagan Bowerman was knocked out in two matches at 125.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.